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Bethnal Green
Bethnal Green is an suburb in London and is part of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Located 3.3 miles (5.3 km) northeast of Charing Cross, it was historically a hamlet in the ancient parish of Stepney, Middlesex. History Mowlem Primary School, which opened in 1887 and was called Mowlem Street School. As the population grew, the school was enlarged in 1898 and changed once again in 1902 for 410 boys and 410 girls. A new single-storey building catering for a total of 280 children was opened in 1971 when it was renamed Mowlem Primary School.https://www.mowlem.org.uk/History/ Bethnal Green, being the cultural heart of the East End, has long been a hotbed of organised crime. Its most famous criminals were the Kray twins, known as Ronald "Ronnie" Kray and Reginald "Reggie" Kray who were identical twin brothers and were active during the 1950s and 1960s with a gang known as The Firm.https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/kray-twins-legend-tom-hardy In the 1970s, Tower Hamlets Council decided to fence the area that would become Bethnal Green Nature Reserve, and lock it up to protect it from fly tipping. In the late 1990s the local Teesdale and Hollybush Tenants and Residents Association became the site custodians and, with the support of Tower Hamlets Council, took responsibility for St Jude's as it was still called locally.https://phytology.org.uk/location/ Frank Dobson Square was constructed by London County Council in 1963, the year of Dobson's death. The centrepiece of the square was the ‘Woman and Fish’ fountain, a sculpture designed and completed by Dobson himself in 1951. The sculpture had been purchased for the borough by London County Council in 1963.http://collage.cityoflondon.gov.uk/view-item?i=258479&WINID=1479332072664 The former Bethnal Green Infirmary, later the London County Council Bethnal Green Hospital, stood opposite Cambridge Heath railway station. The hospital closed as a public hospital in the 1970s and was a geriatric hospital under the NHS until the 1980s. Much of the site was developed for housing in the 1990s but the hospital entrance and administration block remains as a listed building. The Albion Rooms are located in Bethnal Green where Pete Doherty and Carl Barât of the Libertines used to live when the band was together. It became part of music history as the band would hold Guerilla Gigs in the flat that would be packed with people. .]] From 2005 to 2008 the EEL promoted and organised the Vyner Street Festival with the Victory Pub. This was a two-day family festival featuring local bands, artists and market traders with a different theme each year, with the Royal Air Force Red Arrows performing an impromptu flyover in 2008.https://theeelzine.wordpress.com/vyner-street-festival/ By 2012, many local residents and workers had moved out of Vyner Street due to the effects of the Great Recession and the impact of the 2012 Olympics. A documentary film titled Vyner Street was released in the same year as a short observational piece chronicling the two different worlds living side-by-side in the same street.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5579642 One of the first pubs completed under the new Craft Union Pub concept and philosophy is to bring brilliant pubs back in to the heart of the community was The Marquis of Cornwallis during May 2018. The two week and £60,000 project involved redecoration internally and externally, bar works, toilet refurbishment and new lighting and flooring throughout.https://fairlandcontractors.com/portfolio/marquis-of-cornwallis/ Geography A part of Bethnal Green is also part of the wider Regents Canal Conservation Area, established in 2008, the streetside buildings seem neglected but form part of the industrial heritage and character of Vyner Street and also Wadeson Street, which contains a row of three storey Victorian workshops mostly converted to residential use. Both types contribute to the character of the area. Category:Areas in Tower Hamlets Category:London Borough of Tower Hamlets Category:London Borough of Tower Hamlets